The Battle of the Bulls: The Only Battle the Mormon Battalion Ever Fought Was With Wild Animals — Brigham Young’s Prophecy Fulfilled (1846)

In July 1846, as the Mormon Battalion prepared to depart Council Bluffs, Brigham Young gave them a prophecy: they would never have to face a human enemy in battle. It was a specific, testable claim about the outcome of an active military deployment during the Mexican-American War.

On December 11, 1846, marching north along the San Pedro River in what is now Cochise County, Arizona, the Battalion found itself in what would become its only significant armed engagement of the entire 2,000-mile march.

The enemy was not Mexican soldiers.

It was wild bulls.

The Battalion had been following the San Pedro River, where water, firewood, and wild cattle were plentiful. Without warning, a herd of wild bulls charged the column. 'The rampaging bulls charged on and on. There was great confusion and fear.' Three men were injured. Three mules were gored to death. Some wagons were overturned. At least nine bulls were killed by the soldiers.

The event was immediately understood by the men through the lens of Brigham Young's prophecy. When they later reached San Diego without having fired a single shot at a human enemy, they named the Arizona encounter 'the Battle of the Bulls' — partly in humor, but partly as a testimony. The only battle the Battalion ever fought was the battle Brigham Young had left open: not against men, but against animals.

The site along the San Pedro River is now marked with a historical marker on the east bank of the river, south of Sierra Vista, Arizona, open to the public.

Fuller account of this event (as retold in B. H. Roberts, The Mormon Battalion: Its History and Achievements (Deseret News, 1919), Chapter 15):

Here occurred the only fighting the Battalion engaged in on its expedition, a battle with wild bulls. This section of the country seemed to abound with herds of wild cattle, and the males among them were much more bold and ferocious than among the buffalos. They would often stand and gaze at the men, and then, with a roar, charge upon them. Several mules were gored to death by them, both in the teams and among the pack animals; and Colonel Cooke records how some of the wagons were thrown about by the mad charge of these furious beasts. The men were compelled to defend themselves, and in doing so, killed a number of the bulls. The Colonel, in his report, says: 'I have seen the elephant, but I have never seen such a charge as that of these wild bulls.' The soldiers, however, were not to be outdone, and they stood their ground, and the result was that the bulls were driven off, though not until they had caused considerable confusion and some damage to the train. It was a novel battle, and one that the men of the Battalion will not soon forget.